Ignorance

Ignorance is the condition of being uninformed or uneducated; i.e., lacking knowledge or information.

Sourced

• He that voluntarily continues ignorant is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.
  • Samuel Johnson, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 336.

• Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
  • Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1785), Query 6.

• If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
  • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey (January 6, 1816).

• Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of both.
  • Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams (August 1, 1816).

• To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
  • Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil: Or, The Two Nations (1845) p. 36.

• Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.
  • Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), p. 69.

• If one neglects the laws of learning, a sentence is imposed that he is forever chained to his ignorance.
  • Sterling W. Sill, The Power of Believing, (1968), p. 29.

• There are three degrees of comparison: stupido, stupidissimo, and tenore.
  • Pietro Mascagni, in Scott Beach, Musicdotes, (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1977), p. 94.

• To be ignorant of one's own ignorance is to be in an unprogressive, uninspired state of existence.
  • David O. McKay, Pathways To Happiness, (1957), pp. 351-352.

• If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face.
  • Zack de la Rocha, "Settle for nothing now", Rage Against the Machine (album), 1992

• Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.
  • Thomas Gray, repr. In Poetical Works, ed. J. Rogers (1953). Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, l. 99-100 (written 1742, published 1747). http://www.bartleby.com/66/73/25873.html

• Bring your ignorance to the Holy Spirit, the great teacher, who by His precious truth will lead you into all truth.
  • W. P. Mackay, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 337.

• There's nothing as safe as ignorance — or as dangerous.
  • Nero Wolfe in "The Squirt and the Monkey" (1951) by Rex Stout

Unsourced

• A truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.
  • Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, unidentified edition, unidentified page

• An ignorant man is always a slave.
  • Anonymous

• I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.
  • Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, unidentified edition, unidentified page

• I fear ignorance more than I fear death.
  • Vittorio

• ... ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.
  • George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, unidentified edition, unidentified page

• IGNORANCE IS STRENGH
  • George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, unidentified edition, unidentified page

• Ignorance is the parent of fear.
  • Herman Melville, Moby Dick, unidentified edition, unidentified page

• In the brains of pygmies giants dwell.
  • Leonid S. Sukhorukov

• It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't.
  • Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, unidentified page

• "Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!"
  • Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, unidentified edition, unidentified page

• Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the cast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
  • St. Augustine

• Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance.
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

• Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
  • Albert Einstein

• So long as the mother, Ignorance, lives, it is not safe for Science, the offspring, to divulge the hidden causes of things.
  • Johannes Kepler, Somnium, unidentified edition, unidentified page

• The most violent element in society is ignorance.
  • Emma Goldman

• The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
  • Mark Twain

• There comes a point in life when one should learn to shut up. It is called "birth".
  • Simon Munnery, Attention Scum, unidentified episode, unidentified date

• Thought: if you only read one book in your life, I recommend you keep your mouth shut. And listen to me, for I have read nine books! Nine books! Nine bleedin' books! And what's more, I wrote eight of them.
  • Simon Munnery, Attention Scum, unidentified episode, unidentified date

• To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of ignorance.
  • A. Bronson Alcott

• You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do.
  • Norman Juster

• Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, research is the means of all learning, and ignorance is the end.
  • Michel de Montaigne

• An ignorant person will always overdo a thing or neglect it totally.
  • ali, a hundred sayings